I wanted to celebrate the life of Donald Miller Forrest.
There is hardly a moment in my adult life that did not have Donald in it.
We were friends, colleagues, partners, co-creators together for 40+ years, our sons were born a year apart, and we shared a house together for a time and always roomed together on the road …and we were on the road a lot.
Donald was our King Lear in Logger Lear. He was brilliant.
As we worked on the recent production Lear we talked a lot about legacy, that is the theme after all. In this Lear, the character was having a wake for himself while he was still alive to enjoy it. He was brilliant in that part. It was life real time meeting live theatre. We know it is all ephemeral and it will end. But both of us talked about not being done. We weren’t done creating, telling stories, making shit that hopefully would live and resonate after. We weren’t done. That became our Lear shared mantra. And he was visibly angry if someone thought he was. We aren’t done. And this man, his work, his life, his friendship live on in my soul and I imagine many of yours.
I have to say I cried as I put these words together and I am not a crier. They say that tears are memories leaking out of your eyes. The stories and memories are too many to recount here. I miss him every day. Flights of angels my dear friend.